Locked into its place in the ceiling, the trapdoor banged open, opening a hole where the afternoon's sunlight poured through. The chain rattled as it slithered and jerked, almost like it was alive as the careful series of pulleys and wheels allowed the dwemer mechanism to unlock and snap into place. Little more than a series of parabolic mirrors used by the lost civilisation to illuminate mineshafts, Isran had incorporated it with an Ayleid Varla stone that seemed to store the energies of the sun even throughout the long nights of winter. Clicking down within seconds of pulling on the chain, the suspended stone burned as the series of mirrors on the fort's roof focussed the sun's light onto its surface. Burning as bright and as pure as the sun, it filled the room with the soft, warm light; a light that would and had burned vampires into dust and ash in this very room.

  Other than squinting at the sudden brightness, Kaius seemed totally unaffected, shielding his eyes from the gem the length of his forearm suspended in the centre of the ceiling. There was a look of respect on his face, which was in stark contrast to the complete and utter shock that was on Isran's.

  Isran was rooted to the spot, mouth agape as Kaius simply crossed his arms with all the look of an irritated teacher showing displeasure to a disobedient pupil. Nothing he had ever seen or experienced in his entire life could have prepared Isran for the sight of a vampire existing in the light of the sun. In this very room and using this same mechanism he had successfully lured and slew a five hundred year old vampire ancient of the Garlythi bloodline. It should have been impossible… It had to be impossible… It was...

  "Hah Gron Drem!"

  Pulsing through the air and vibrating through the floor, the words stuck him with all the force of his blessed warhammer, ripping through his mind and body as he collapsed like a puppet with cut strings. The amulet of Stendarr clattered to the floor a split second before he did, his armour doing little to protect him from being winded as he found himself sprawled on his back, looking up at the dangling chains and the opened trapdoor to the sky above.

  He had been defeated, cast down and totally helpless by one of the very creatures he had sworn to destroy. In his heart he knew that it would be at the unholy claws of a vampire that would be his death but he would never have believed it would be like this. Bested by an impossibility, a creature somehow immune or at the very least resistant to all of its accursed kind’s weaknesses.

  “Well,” The voice was slightly slurred, Kaius's face growing puffy and missing a couple of teeth from the fight left his mouth filling with blood that he spat onto the floor. "Now that I have your attention..."

  “You won’t get anything out of me, monster. You've won. Finish it..."

  "By the Nine you are stubborn." Sighing loudly, he dropped down onto the chair he had dragged over, straddling it and leaning on the backrest with both arms. "I didn’t go to all the damned trouble travelling here just to pick a fight. I told you that I just wanted to pass along some information and retrieve something. You’re the one who started throwing your weight around while I was trying to be civil."

  “There is nothing civil about a creature like yourself.”

  “You’d be surprised.” Fumbling with a pouch at his side, Kaius retrieved a small cloth bandage and pressed it into the side of his face where Isran’s silver knuckle guards and the vial of holy water had lacerated it. “I don’t blame you though. In my time I have met very few vampires who are nothing more than animals. The ones in Morthal for example were a different breed to the usual, and if they are working with others of their kind, let alone working as the lesser partners in the alliance, then there is something damned dangerous going on in Skyrim.”

  “So you kill your own kind? Is that supposed to make me like you? Rabid dogs and trapped skeevers eat their own and they are animals, just like you.”

  “If I was just an animal, then I think that you would have found it difficult to insult me through a hole in your throat and your own heart stuffed in your mouth.” There was no hostility, or threat in Kaius's words as he continued to probe and feel the wounds on his face, occasionally casting small bursts of restoration magicka to speed along the healing. “Despite what you think, I certainly have no love of vampires and I know that I’m not the only vampire with the opinion that the world would be better off without the curse. I also guarantee that I have killed far more than you and your little band have as well.”

  “How noble of you.”

  “Thank you.” The sarcasm from the two men was thick enough to need a knife to cut through, and Isran’s gaze was powerful enough that Kaius was close to bursting into flames. “Which brings me back to the other main reason why I came here. I had heard about the Dawnguard being reformed on my way here, which I’ll tell you, was a surprise. I wasn’t expecting to have to ask permission to poke around to retrieve what I left here.”

  “There is nothing here of interest.” Still unable to do anything more than speak, Isran was doing everything he could to will his body to move once more. “The fort has been abandoned in one form or another for centuries, and has been scavenged or pilfered every single year the whole time.”

  “That it has, but if you know where to look…” Kaius trailed off, looking around the room and gesturing to Isran’s collection of books, and the Varla stone hanging from the ceiling, still blazing with the sun’s light. “All of this, and your fancy moves before tells me you are more than just the usual run-of-the-mill vampire hunter. I’m sorry you had to waste some of your fancy toys too, but unfortunately for you I believe in the Nine Divines, don’t worship Molag Bal, and have got a bit of a unique condition with sunlight.”

  “If you have a point, just get to it.”

  “How much do you know of the history of the Dawnguard, and this fort?”

  "Fort Dawnguard?" The paralysis was still encompassing his body, but the tiniest hints of feeling were coming back into his fingertips. Not that it would be of any use; the creature sitting over him was immune to everything he had at his disposal. "Originally owned by the Jarl of Riften back in the Second Era, it was a bit of a black mark on the Hold's history. It was a perfect opportunity for reestablishing the old order and has all the space we’d ever need. I’m merely trying to put it to good use."

  "You can keep talking if you want." The expression of smugness was almost more aggravating than being at the whims of one of the damned, which forced Isran to listen to Kaius. "I’m nowhere near being able to master this Thu’um thing, but I know it’ll be a while before that shout wears off."

  Confusion was warring against his burning hatred for the smug-looking being sitting innocently on the chair. They both knew that there was little point in fighting, but he wasn't going to simply give in to the creature.

  "Well, how about I simply cut to the chase." Kaius continued. "Way back in the Second Era, Fort Dawnguard had been little more than a border post maintained by the Jarl of Riften. Then one day his son was infected with vampirism, so he turned the fort into his prison while his daughter went searching for a cure. She never found one, but she did however find a few very particular swords. What if I said I knew where to find Maegalla’s blade?"

  “Maegalla’s blade… You mean the Light of Dawn?” Surprise and shock burst through his stoic demeanour and despite his predicament Isran couldn't help but laugh. "It's a legend, nothing more. It hasn’t been seen in nearly two hundred years…”

  “Since the Champion of Cyrodiil wielded it.” Of the emotions Isran expected, the expression of sorrowful melancholy that consumed Kaius’s features was… unusual. “I know all too much about those particular stories. Funnily enough, it is related to how I know the Light of Dawn is here. Right now. Below our very feet.”

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  “How?”

  “Because I’m the one who hid it here. About seventy years ago in fact. The Vampyrum Order in Cyrodiil was getting really, really unhappy with Maegalla’s blade hanging around, and it was getting too much of a hindrance keeping it. So, I hid it here to throw off their scent.”

  “A vampire wielding Maegalla’s blade. Sounds impossible.”

  “Impossible is a vampire that can survive sunlight, and yet here we are.”

  Wriggling back and forth as he leaned his chest into the backrest, Kaius made a show of moving his head in and out of the beam of sunlight flowing through the opened trapdoor.

  “What do you really want then?”

  For several, long drawn out seconds, Kaius looked about the room once more, staring at the collection of items, and the contraption still glowing in the ceiling.

  “Skyrim, and even Tamriel is under attack by multiple threats. Every new one that appears is just compounding the situation, and from what I have seen the most serious issue at the moment is the vampires. They are even more destabilising than any potential dragons that might be roaming around. Especially how the Stormcloaks and the Imperials are determined to murder each other at the moment.”

  “And why does a creature like you even care about all of this?”

  “Because I happen to be part of this world and I like some of the things that are in it. Skyrim is important, and what happens in this province has far reaching effects beyond anything you can imagine. I’m just trying to help.”

  "You can help by cutting your own throat."

  “Just because you couldn't kill me doesn't mean that I'm going to finish the job for you.” The sigh this time was deeper and showing more of Kaius's annoyance at Isran’s obstinate tone. “Look, I’m busy enough as it is without trying to fight the Nine-only-know how many vampires are being stirred up. The only reason why I’m here is because I came to get the Light of Dawn to help deal with all the things I need to kill lately. You ever tried to kill a dragon with a broadsword before? It’s almost more luck than skill.”

  Isran continued to lay silently, glaring at Kaius while feeling his fingers lose some of their paralysis.

  “I need your help, Isran and I think that you might need mine too. While they weren’t effective against me, there are a lot of vampires out there that would find your gadgets and tools here very disagreeable, so I will make you a deal.”

  “What kind of deal?”

  “I give you the Light of Dawn, and you continue building up your merry band of hunters here to the point where you can start taking the fight to the bloodsuckers. In return, I have one less thing to worry about, while I try to track down who in oblivion stole the Windcaller’s Horn from under my nose. I’ll even throw in a sweetener for you. I heard from some of the others when I arrived that there is some vampire activity in northern Whiterun Hold. I’ll go and investigate it for you.”

  Unable to do much else besides think and talk, Isran stared at Kaius as feeling continued to return through his body. For anyone else the offer would’ve been highly attractive, but the vampire’s charms weren’t going to work on him. He was however faced with a serious problem. Here was a vampire who was resistant to his usual techniques, and while appearing to be willing to support him, Isran knew that there would be ulterior motives behind Kaius’s offer. There always was. Deceit and treachery were part of what they were, and they couldn’t escape it any more than their thirst for blood.

  There was no doubt in his mind that it was more likely that Kaius was seeking to use Isran and the nascent Dawnguard in eliminating some rivals, but that suited him fine. At least for the moment. He needed time, and planning to come up with a way to deal with Kaius, and so the decision was easy enough to make. The enemy of his enemy, would be the first to die.

  When the sun rose over Dayspring canyon as it had over the centuries past, it slowly illuminated the enormous stone edifice carved into the bones of the mountains themselves. Proud, yet weather beaten, and worn from age, the fortress was truly impressive even for something that was little more than a ruin. Those few who were currently calling the ancient fortress home were going about their daily duties, preparing for a day of training, refurbishment or gathering of supplies, but for the handful standing atop the keep’s rooftop they were watching.

  Even for someone accustomed to sleeping an hour or less a day, Isran had suffered through a truly sleepless night. It had taken years of practice, study and a combination of restoration magicka, meditation and sheer willpower, but he had almost cured himself of the need for sleep entirely. Afterall, it is hard to catch someone sleeping when they are constantly aware at all times. With a vampire in the fortress though, such a skill didn’t matter as there would be no resting for him, whether it was sleep or otherwise.

  It had taken some time for the strange, shout-induced paralysis to fade from his body, but true to his word, Kaius led him into the fortress’s depths. In the years since he had taken up residence in Fort Dawnguard, Isran believed he had been exceptionally thorough in his searching and exploration, but deep within the natural tunnels that the fort had been built into, was a portion that he never knew existed. Unless you knew it was there, and exactly where to look, the passage that Kaius uncovered was truly impossible to find, especially how the rockfalls over the decades had become almost part of the tunnel walls.

  With his vampiric strength it took a fraction of the time that a team of labourers would’ve, but Kaius had quickly removed hundreds of kilograms of fallen stone, shifting aside a boulder that would’ve taken ten full grown men to shift and uncovering a long, plain looking box with a dwemer combination lock. There was truly nothing special to the box, and where it had been hidden would have been impossible to find unless purely by accident, but within laid something Isran had truly never seen before.

  It was a long, two handed and curved elven sword, a dark emerald-green that was almost as black as the night, with twinkling, gleaming lights dancing like winter starlight in the metal blade. Isran believed he had seen every type and make of weapon throughout Tamriel, but this was a truly, unique sword unlike anything he had ever heard of. While he doubted it was the vampire slaying weapon of legend, forged by the ancient, long lost Ayleids, it was truly impressive.

  “Don’t lose it.” The way that Kaius retrieved the sword from the box’s interior was with reverence, and he had been looking upon it like a long lost friend. “It has slain more than just vampires in its time, and it's also a lot sharper than anything you could imagine.”

  With obvious reluctance Kaius had handed the weapon over to Isran, a look of longing and memory on his face, even as he tensed in anticipation of Isran using the blade against him. For now at least, Isran wasn’t going to give Kaius the pleasure of correctly deducing his true desires, and he certainly wasn’t going to try anything with a blade given to him by such a creature. He didn’t even hold it by the hilt in case there was some insidious enchantment imbued within it and wouldn’t even unsheath it until he was satisfied it wasn’t some elaborate ruse.

  It had almost been morning by the time they returned from the fort’s depths, and now, as the dawning sun rose and illuminated the canyon, Isran was watching as Kaius and his companions walked along the road to the west. Every step they took was a small measure of comfort to Isran as he watched, almost unblinkingly at Kaius’s departure.

  "It's a pity they couldn't have stayed for longer, Isran." By his side, one of the more senior members of the Dawnguard was watching the trio leave, but with a different focus for his attention. Even though they were dozens of metres away and standing atop the fortress’s ramparts, Celann was obviously staring at the curves of the young woman by Kaius’s side. "They were brightening up the place."

  "That's because you were thinking with your cock, instead of your brain." The growl ripped from Isran's throat, but unlike his old comrade he was feeling a bit more relieved with every step that Kaius took away from the fort with his two companions. While Celann was correct and the two women that had followed Kaius to Fort Dawnguard were attractive; a thrall was a thrall. Every moment they and their master remained with the Dawnguard, the greater the threat became.

  Despite his usual inclinations, he hadn’t told any of the other members of the Dawnguard about Kaius's true nature. For now it would be a secret, especially how none of them had been able to discern it for themselves. The blind, idiotic fools... Not that telling them was born out of some misguided sense of decency, or to keep Kaius’s secret. No. It was much more pragmatic. Isran knew all too well the capabilities of those hunters under his command, and if all of his skills, efforts and equipment had come up short, then the two dozen rank amateurs he had at the moment had no a chance at all. A hunter’s patience was needed here, not choler and anger. Emotional responses against vampires got your throat bitten out, and he needed time to solve this particular problem.

  A daywalker. There were always legends of such vampires, possibly for as long as such creatures had been birthed into existence by their Daedric master, but even he had never believed such a thing was possible. Kaius was a threat beyond a threat, but he was a potentially useful… asset, until Isran could discover a means, or plan a stratagem of dealing with him. A reckoning was in their mutual futures, and he would be even more prepared than he had ever been. He would be ready, and waiting.

  If, or when Kaius returned from Dimhollow Crypt...

  Blood of Dragons Volume 8 - Dawn's Purpose